Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers may have played the Super Bowl halftime show, but Bob Dylan was the voice of its commercials. Not one but two of the program's multi-million-dollar ads featured the 72-year-old's rasp, shilling for American cars and Greek yoghurt.

Although Dylan didn't himself appear in the commercial for Chobani, he loaned the makers of pressed, low-fat yoghurt his 1966 single I Want You. These slingers of bacterial culture took full advantage, taking one of the centrepieces of Blonde On Blonde and using it to soundtrack a bear's comedic attack on a small-town convenience store.

For Dylan's other Super Bowl cameo, he appeared amid shots of farm silos, highways, James Dean and billiards, to remind Americans to buy American-made cars. Technically a commercial for the Chrysler 200, the ad opens with Dylan asking, "Is there anything more American than America?"

More than 100m people were expected to watch last night's American football final, inflating the prices for each commercial to a reported $4m (£2.4m) per 30-second spot. Besides Dylan's creaky croon, other ads featured music by Lady Gaga, OneRepublic, and U2, who used the broadcast to debut their new single. Not everyone was impressed that Dylan, a former singer of protest songs, had turned sedan and yoghurt huckster. "Bob Dylan is now a car salesman. #helpus," tweeted
the economist Umair Haque. "Next up, Jesus endorsing Goldman Sachs." "Young Bob Dylan would vomit in the mouth of old Bob Dylan for making car commercials, especially jingoistic ones," wrote the former
Billboard editor Bill Werde. Another viewer
suggested that Dylan is "still trolling his fans after all these years".
Certainly 2014 didn't mark Dylan's first foray into the commercial world, or even his first Super Bowl. He peddled for Victoria's Secret circa Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, and for Pepsi at Super Bowl XLIII,
in 2009. He has also been involved in ads for Cadillac, Apple and Jeep.